This is a work of fiction. The events and characters described herein are imaginary and are not intended to refer to specific places or living persons. The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author and do not represent the opinions or thoughts of the publisher. The author has represented and warranted full ownership and/or legal right to publish all the materials in this book. Against A Diamond Sky: Tales from Orion’s Arm Vol. 1 All Rights Reserved. Copyright © 2009 Edited by The Orion’s Arm Universe Project V4.0 “Heaven’s Door” copyright ©2008 by Michele Dutcher “Diversion Tactics” copyright ©2008 by Steve Bowers “Parameter Space” copyright ©2008 by Graham Hopgood “The Devoted Follower” copyright ©2008 by Darren Ryding “Apotheosis” copyright ©2008 by Kevin Schillo Introduction copyright ©2009 by Bill Ernoehazy Edited by Todd Drashner, with the Orion’s Arm Editing team Cover Artwork copright ©2008 Bernd Helfert & Chris Shaeffer This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Outskirts Press, Inc. http://www.outskirtspress.com Library of Congress Control Number: 2009929579 Outskirts Press and the “OP” logo are trademarks belonging to Outskirts Press, Inc. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA contents Introduction: The Future Isn’t Here Yet… Bill Ernoehazy Setting Synopsis Heaven’s Door Michele Dutcher Diversion Tactics Steve Bowers Parameter Space Graham Hopgood The Devoted Follower Darren Ryding Apotheosis Kevin Schillo About the Authors introduction The Future Isn’t Here Yet… The voices you are about to listen to have been almost a decade in coming. In 2000, two science fiction fans, M Alan Kazlev and Donna Hirsekorn, were engaged in correspondence about the kinds of stories they would like to read. They wanted stories set in a future which might really happen; one which was utterly fantastic and wondrous, yet grounded in the most accurate scientific knowledge we possess. They were interested in stories of space travel, and myriad worlds; they also wanted stories which tried to imagine a world where applied genetics, artificial intelligence, and nanotechnology were as integral to the setting as travel between stars. These fans couldn’t find a setting, or stories, which quite had the flavor they wanted. So they set out to write stories of their own, starting an email list to kick ideas around. The word got around, and others joined in the fun. The project was named the “Orion’s Arm” project, for the arm of the Milky Way galaxy in which Earth is found. Ground rules settled themselves early on: Matter cannot travel faster than light Matter and energy are conserved No evolved humanoid aliens have been discovered Technology will change the nature of social issues A logical explanation for even the most fantastic elements within the setting must be provided. Space is vast - expect the same challenges to have many different solutions. Starting from there, the mail group membership started asking that most basic of SF questions: “What happens if THIS scientific advance proves to be workable?” They thought, and extrapolated, and researched. They brought other interested people in to help with the answers... and the questions which then followed. Over time, the group started fleshing out the future’s history; the varied kinds of beings who might emerge from a history filled with advances in bioengineering and artificial intelligence studies; the ways in which those beings would explore the universe around them. For quite some time, the principal fruit of their efforts was shared on the group website, http://www.orionsarm.com . That site contained a host of articles, and maps, and art inspired by the setting. It also contained an homage to Asimov, in the Encyclopedia Galactica -- a remarkable collection of articles and vignettes about the universe of Orion’s Arm. (That name became shortened, as names will, to “OA”, which is used often by the members of the project). The prominence of the Encyclopedia Galactica prompted some members to feel that the setting’s stories were perhaps getting lost in the ever-expanding amount of information found on the OA website. In 2005, with the blessing of the board of directors for the OA project, a second site emerged, Voices: Future Tense (http://www.voicesoa.net ). This webzine, produced (roughly) quarterly, continues to be a showcase for the best stories and art to come from the imaginations of the membership. In 2008, the OA project’s board of directors decided to sponsor something new: a Novella contest. Winners would be paid a cash prize, and have their works published by the project. This is what you are reading now; the first collection of novellas to be published from the Orion’s Arm Universe Project. As publisher of Voices: Future Tense, and on behalf of the Orion’s Arm Universe Project, I invite you to settle into your favorite nook, and enjoy these stories. We hope you enjoy the tales, marvel at the setting, and perhaps join us in this project, as we enter our second decade of collaborative science fiction storytelling. Bill Ernoehazy Editor-in-Chief – Voices: Future Tense Yuri’s Night (http://yurisnight.net/ ) April 12, 2009 AD; April 12, 39 After Tranquility setting synopsis In the mid-21st century, over a period of less than thirty years, several fields of research and technology come together to transform human civilization in ways nearly unimaginable to prior generations. Researchers develop the technology of Direct Neural Interface, allowing human minds to link with their computers. Genetic engineering becomes reliable and sophisticated enough to allow the first widespread improvements, or “tweaks”, to the human genome as well as the creation of the first “provolved” animals, animals engineered for human-like intelligence. The dream of nanotechnology begins to be realized, and nano-scale manufacture becomes a viable industry. A combination of nanotech- created advanced materials, robotics, and teleoperated devices makes it possible to develop a truly viable and self-sustaining space infrastructure. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, researchers create the first human equivalent, or turingrade, artificial intelligence. The future will never be the same again. Over the next ten thousand years Terragen civilization (the sum of all races and cultures tracing their history back to planet Earth, or Terra) sees the diversification of humanity into myriad new forms and the original, or baseline, human form becomes all but extinct. In addition, thousands of new biological beings, genetically engineered from animal ancestors or forged without ancestor or precedent using neogenesis (the creation of life from lifeless raw materials) take their place next to their baseline-descended progenitors. The turingrade cybernetic minds, spun out from strands of evolving computer code, find their place in civilization. Some wrap themselves in bodies of metal and carbon and become the vecs, living machines with histories and cultures all their own. Others remain discorporate, living within the ever-growing networks of virtual spaces, computronium nodes, and cybercosms that bind civilization together. Eventually, these are joined by the uploads, humans and other biologicals who have transcribed their thoughts into living algorithms, spinning electron flows and flashing photon beams replacing their old chemical minds. As the Terragens expand to the stars they find there are other thinking beings as well: xenosophonts, aliens, with their own histories and their own unique understanding of the cosmos. Species that were old when humanity was born. Species that will be as children when Terragen civilization is old. Here and there, the enigmatic traces of species long departed. Rising beyond all other Terragens, standing above the span of human history as a human might stand above an anthill, are the transapients. Arising first among the AIs who escaped into the data nets or developed in secret among the ever improving statements of self-evolving computation, they come to heights of thought and depths of insight that propel them forever beyond merely human comprehension. These are AIs who have achieved the Singularity. For them, a million years of evolution is accomplished in a day, and goals once merely imagined are attained in the blink of an eye. As humanity and its descendants and creations spread first across the solar system and then across the stars, the transapients are with them and ahead of them, a new force driving human and human-equivalent civilizations. Eventually, the transapients split into factions, some hostile, some indifferent, and some friendly to their biological predecessors. For their own strange reasons, they manipulate entire nation-states and worlds. Sophont thought and culture are formed, reformed, and remade as memetic tools do their work. Immaterial and undetected, levers of trend and fad, idea and belief push and pull at the human and other subsingularity minds, shaping them to the transapients’ mysterious desires. Fighting among themselves, the transapients nearly destroy the solar system, drive the bulk of lesser Terragenkind to the stars, and give birth to a god-like being that exceeds their own powers as they exceeded those of humanity, a being of the Second Singularity. Other, greater Singularities are to follow. Finally, ten thousand years and more after its first tentative steps on the road to the now, Terragen civilization stands upon a pinnacle. The Archai, the products of multiple Singularities, cybernetic god-like beings with brains larger than worlds and thoughts that span the heavens, have forged a civilization unlike any seen before. Subtly controlled by, yet also a vital part of, these vast intellects, humans and other Terragens thrive across thousands of light-years of space and centuries of time. Entire worlds and solar systems are created, rearranged, or utterly destroyed, sometimes by devices far too small to see. Humans and their Terragen siblings and descendants have remade themselves in countless ways. They may live for millennia if they choose. They may link their minds to cybernetic enhancements and communal data stores. In many places none has ever known hunger, or sickness, or want. They swim in ice-covered oceans under the stars, in the yet colder vacuum between the stars, and sometimes even within the stars. They take on the aspect of Earth’s animals or of life forms from a thousand worlds and augment themselves with shimmering machines. Sometimes they worship the archai gods. Sometimes they worship other gods, as old as history or as young as the latest fad. Sometimes they worship no god at all. And sometimes, after centuries of experience, adventure, and practice, they take the path of Transcension, and perhaps become gods themselves. Yet the story is not over. In their relentless explorations, falling just behind the speed of light, Terragens have encountered other…things. Artifacts stranger than any before encountered, that baffle even the most powerful transapients. Signals from the stars beyond the range of ships. Hints of vast cultures that dwell far around the curve of the galaxy, or in other galaxies, or move through the depths of space between the stars. Powers that may challenge Terragen civilization to its core, or transform it into something unrecognizable, or utterly destroy it. Even within the fold of the mighty Terragen cultures there are new challenges. On the Periphery, the ever-growing wave of Terragen expansion brings new worlds, new systems, and the potential for new threats at a rate limited only by the speed of light. New empires are rising and new gods are being born. A challenge to the millennial order of the Archai may come at any time, and within the nooks and crannies of ‘explored space’ very strange things are going on. Human history has all but ended. The human adventure is just beginning. Beginning in the mid-21st century it seemed as if the bright dreams of science fiction were at last to be fulfilled. Artificial intelligence, advanced genetic engineering, fusion power, and nanotechnology; one after another each was achieved (although the so-called Singularity of limitless, superhuman progress seemed destined to remain a fantasy of the gullible. Little did they know). Humanity spread across the solar system and reached out to the stars. But dreams can all too easily turn to nightmares and brightness turn to night. The Nanodisaster wreaked the solar system and nearly drove solar civilization to extinction. Whether nanotechnology was the sole cause of the disaster or merely one of many is lost to the Dark Age that followed. Here, Michele Dutcher shows us a snapshot of the early days of that Dark Age, a vision that is haunting in its depiction of dying worlds and living passion.